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“It would say anything goes; there are no rules in terms of how to finance campaigns,” Obama said “There aren’t a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way, where you can basically have millionaires and billionaires bankrolling whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed.”

The court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in McCutcheon v. FEC — a case brought by Alabama Republican donor Shaun McCutcheon asking to overturn the total amount of contributions that a donor can give to all candidates.

The conservative majority on the court seemed poised to either toss the cap entirely or, at the very least, tinker with the current rules. Progressive watchdog groups have warned that the case would vastly increase the amount of campaign cash that flows through the system.

Obama compared the case to the 2010 Citizens United case that allowed for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on politics. That decision opened the door for the creation of super PACs — that allowed for unlimited amounts of money to be spent independently on political campaigns.

The president said that much of the current stalemate in Washington — including the showdown over the government funding — can be traced to that 2010 court decision.

“I’ve continued to believe that Citizens United contributed to some of the problems we’re having in Washington right now,” Obama said. “You have some ideological extremist who has a big bankroll, and they can entirely skew our politics.”

“There are a whole bunch of members of Congress right now who privately will tell you, I know our positions are unreasonable, but we’re scared that if we don’t go along with the tea party agenda, or the — some particularly extremist agenda, that we’ll be challenged from the right,” Obama said. “And the threats are very explicit. And so they toe the line.

“That’s part of why we’ve seen a breakdown of just normal routine business done here in Washington on behalf of the American people,” he said.

The McCutcheon case, Obama said, is an even bigger threat to the system.

“The latest case would go even further than Citizens United,” Obama said about the McCutcheon case. He added later: “What it means is ordinary Americans are shut out of the process.”

Obama acknowledged that Democrats too are guilty of cozying up to big donors.

“I had to raise a lot of money for my campaign,” he said. “There’s nobody who operates in politics that has perfectly clean hands on this issue.”

Obama’s 2008 campaign smashed the previous campaign finance records — raising just under $1 billion. He also become the first presidential candidate in history to opt out of the voluntary public financing system.

His 2008 opponent, John McCain, ran a publicly financed campaign. But in 2012, both Obama and opponent Mitt Romney raised more than $1 billion each in conjunction with their respective political parties — a record amount of money in a presidential cycle.

In addition, two former Obama confidantes formed the super PAC Priorities USA to help raise additional campaign cash for the president’s campaign. And after the 2012 election, a number of top campaign aides formed the nonprofit group Organizing for Action to advocate for Obama’s second term agenda. That nonprofit has been one of the best-funded outside groups in 2013 — raising more than $13 million in the first half of 2013.